Oh dear, the bottom drawer is empty of brickbats. It is time to reluctantly withdraw a bouquet - or maybe just a gladdie stem - and toss it in the direction of Stephen Byers, the trade and industry secretary.

In a week of Bournemouth spume, on the rhetoric front Mr Byers made little impact; not for him Gordon Brown's homage to the Carpenters' songbook with 'We've only just begun' or indeed Tony's wild-eyed pulpit-bashing performance, which practically had the hall speaking in tongues, so fervent was its evangelising. For Byers the judges hardly managed to get their 'style' points above a 5.4. But he may yet turn out to be a man of substance.

The DTI produced a proposal last week that should be acknowledged as a thoughtful initiative that stands a fighting chance of improving the business environment - and how many Government initiatives can we really say that about? In order to enable the 'knowledge economy' to extend further than a few men in polo-necks or subsidiaries of Microsoft, the DTI is setting up what is termed a 'knowledge bank'. Put simply, it will allow all those e-businesses that are too small to stick in the venture-capitalists' nets to find cheaper funding.

Of course nothing is really New Labour unless it has a little bit of the old stuff repackaged, and it would appear that at the heart of this lies an extension of the small firms loans guarantee scheme, where the Government essentially acts as the risk-bearer on loans from high street banks. Like all Government initiatives the details are slightly hazy - who, for instance, will screen for dunces at the 'knowledge bank'? And it is difficult to be too enthusiastic about the prospect of anyone in Government 'picking winners'. But, minor concerns aside, at least Byers is willing to give us a practical demonstration of what 'responsible risk-taking' really means, rather than just mouthing off about it.

But while the 'knowledge bank' will help those with no assets, the Government should not entirely shun small widget-based businesses; basket-weaving and the like.

Travelling to Bournemouth last week to enjoy a bracing walk in the hot air was Chris Haskins, the eminently sensible head of Northern Foods and a close personal friend of the PM. Finding himself trapped in a carriage with one of our correspondents, who had been sent to cover fringe meetings on productivity as a punishment for some unspeakable crime, Haskins divulged one or two interesting thoughts of his own.

Freeze-drying mangos and sitting on quangos makes him one of those publicly concerned private enterprise people. As head of the Better Regulation Task Force, Haskins has formed the opinion that the Working Families Tax Credit should not place an extra burden of administrative cost on small businesses - and will say as much this week when he launches the task force's annual report.

This seems a good point. Paying the WFTC through the workplace has the undesirable effect of putting extra cash in the hands of, on balance, men rather than women. (How many women do you see in William Hill on a Friday afternoon; how many men do you see berating their wives for spending money for the children's shoes on beer? Apart, of course, from in my own household, where it is a daily occurrence.) But it cleverly shifts the administrative cost away from the DSS.

For larger companies the cost of administering such benefits and taxes can often be made up by juggling sums of bulk betwixt Government and employee with a convenient interim period. In other words, they can cover costs by coining the interest over a couple of weeks. For a basketweaver in a bothy with one helper this is not really an option. Hence the suggestion that the Government bear the admin costs. I'm not sure that even a paragon of Haskin's clout can put this one past the Government. But if, like the knowledge bank, the Government's concern is to shelter the small business and foster growth these are both gestures that, small in scale, could be great in impact.